Hi, I was (am) using Knoppix on a Thumb Drive for when I’m on a PC. Most of my work is done on a MacBook Pro, using Chief Architect, AutoCAD 2016, Pixelmator, Gimp, and Blender. Sometimes I use PCs (mostly at work, sometimes when visiting friends and family - easier to carry a USB stick then lug a MBP. Anyway, Knoppix runs very slow and choppy on most of the pc hardware I have been using lately).
I can do this with Puppy (for lower resources, more speed), but somewhat lost as to the save functions. Do I need to create a persistence partition or does the pup save file act as this?
Ideally, I would like to partition a 32gb USB thumb drive in 4 or so equal partitions, and keep one fat32 so I can carry files from my mac, and edit them when away, with the other partitions, would like to have more than one flavor of puppy to play with.
Anyhow, the hardware I use most is i3-i5’s, most are 2-3 years old, most have about 4-gb ram, and video cards ranging from 64mb - 512 at the highest. I need to run Gimp and blender, but mostly Gimp (I take screen shots of my Architecture projects and edit them in Gimp for both web and print).
Any advice on this and the partition types I should be using would be greatly appreciated. Thank You, DataB0y.

Puppy works best as a frugal install.
A frugal install can be put on anything and on any format.
A frugal install is all Puppy files placed in a directory (folder).

What Puppy save, you can have, depends on the format of the partition, the frugal install is on.
Save file -can be placed on any format.
Save folder -only on a Linux format.

For Puppy frugal installs, all that is needed is a partition with some free space to put Puppy on.
One partition is all that is needed for Puppy.

You could make:
One single fat32 partition.
A fat32 partition, a Linux formatted (ext2, 3, or 4) partition.
Any combination you want.

The only consideration on the format used, is what kind of save do you want to use. save file or save folder.
A fat32 format has a file size max limit of 4GB, so the save file can only be up to 4GB in size.
Linux formats not an issue.

Most people like a save folder, because it just auto sizes.
Only size limit is how much free space on partition.

example:
Here is a 32GB USB flash drive with one partition formatted ext 3.
It has 7 versions of Puppy frugally installed.
Each one in it's own folder, with it's specific save folder.
Grub4dos boot loader is used to boot, with a boot menu listing each Puppy version.
The partition has 24GB of free space.
Any save folder can use up to that 24GB of free space.

Note:
As shown, there are other files just stored on the partition, that are not part of the Puppy(s) frugal installs.

capture19480.png

Description

Filesize

38.98 KB

Viewed

133 Time(s)

_________________I have found, in trying to help people, that the things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected

This seems a viable solution, I didn’t know about the 24gb save folder option. I’d probably use Ext3 as the file system just because I do have a program on my MBP that does mount and read Ext3 file systems (so that would be an easy way to go between the 2 OS’s).
I really only need 3 Distro, Slacko, Debian based, and a foreign language (french) to help me in my study of that language. I don’t know much about Slackware, but it looks interesting, Debian is what I’m most familiar with, Ubuntu really doesn’t look appealing to me.
Anyway, thank you for your informative response - i’m now off to read the SaveFile wikka. DataB0y.

I think you may have misunderstood bigpup's reference to 24 Gb with respect to a SaveFolder.

The first time you boot into a Puppy and select Exit>reboot or Shutdown, you're offered the opportunity to preserve the changes you've made. If you select "yes", Puppy will examine the media it booted from (your USB-Stick) and all the drives (and their partitions) on your system and offer to save those changes to any. It will recommend that you save to the drive and partition from which Puppy booted. Only if the partition you chose is formatted Linux (and Linux Ext3 is my formatting choice for USB-Keys) will Puppy offer to create a SaveFolder. If you chose a SaveFile (you have no choice if the partition is Fat(32) or NtSF), you'll then be asked 'how large". A SaveFile is a fixed size, although Puppies come with an application to increase (but not decrease) it later. Because of the limitations of Fat32, the maximum it can be increased to on such Partition is 4 Gb.

A SaveFolder, on the other hand, has no fixed size. When first created the space it uses may not be significantly larger (if at all) than had you simply created any folder. It expands as you install new applications or save data into it. So, with 24 Gbs available space on a USB-Key, it could, but need not, expand to that available space. If you had two Puppies on that partition, both using SaveFolders, with maximum available space of 24 Gb, how much of it either Puppy uses for its SaveFolder depends on what you install into that Puppy, and the extend of the available space remaining as a result of your prior installations into the other Puppy's SaveFolder. Similarly, if you store data outside your SaveFolder, the extent to which a SaveFolder can "grow" depends on the space already used by the data stored outside the SaveFolder.

Regarding having a Fat32 partition to facilitate transfer of files to computers running Windows, that's the way I set up my USB-Keys. And I suggest that it be you're first partition. My experience has been that Windows will only see the first partition of a USB-Key if the other partitions are Linux formatted. It will not see a Fat(32) formatted 2nd or later partition if the 1st is Linux formatted. [I don't know it that's the case if a program enabling Windows to read Linux partitions is installed; something I don't do).

On you're USB-Key, your bootloader will be on the 1st partition but it's OK if that partition is formatted Fat32. Such bootloader will be able to boot up a Frugal Puppy on your 2nd (or later) Linux formatted partition.

Since Frugally installed Puppies only require a folder --do not require an entire partition-- you really only need two partitions for your purpose; and they don't have to be the same size. Although in general Frugal Puppies are easiest to boot into if you use grub4dos as bootloader, [it automatically finds them and creates a boot menu entry] as there are macs in your environment, you may want to consider these threads: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=97141; http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=102158 and http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=943608#943608. One "take-away" from these is also to have the first partition of your USB-Key formatted as Fat32. This partition can be relatively small as it only needs to hold the bootloader and a couple of files. To avoid accidentally deleting or overwriting them, it may make sense to format a second partition also as Fat32, labeled "Transfer" and used as such. It's size will depend on your expected needs.

The rest of the Key can be formatted as Linux 3. But if any of the computers you may use is "low on RAM" --less than 2 Gbs-- it may be of some benefit to add a forth partition of say, 2 Gbs in size, formatted as a Linux Swap.

Almost all recent Puppies will run some Linux version of Gimp and Blender. Some versions of AutoCad will run under Wine, https://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iAppId=86, while AFAIK neither Chief Architect nor Pixelmator produced either native Linux versions or versions which will run under wine. See the Additional Software SubForum regarding Wine and Wine Portable both under the Virtualization section. Version2013 is now publishing Wine 2 which, I think, will run under 64bit Operating systems while providing the framework for running 32-bit Windows applications. But, I may be wrong. Read his thread --start from the end after orienting yourself on the first couple of pages. Or better yet, try it and post your experience. http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=725128#725128. Earlier Wine versions were 32-bit applications. To run them under 64 Bit Puppies required the loading of a 32-bit compatibility SFS. See, the thread of the particular puppy you are interested in for details.

A Wellminded Search, may help you find information. http://wellminded.net63.net/. It uses a google search engine. Just plug in a couple search terms; e.g. Tahrpup gimp, or Slacko64 32 bit SFS.

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum